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Moving to a new computer - still registered?

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Rich Ulrich

unread,
Jul 13, 2022, 1:51:28 AM7/13/22
to
I think I've done this fine. Am I still registered?

I installed Agent (latest version), taking the 30 day Free period
since I don't find my registration from last time.

After copying the files, it does appear that Agent knows me,
so I THINK it won't ask me to pay. (I'll pay, if they ask.)

Q1. Am I properly registered?

Nest: This is not a Forte Agent question but I hope it has a
simple YES answer:

Q2. Do similar steps work for moving Firefox and Thunderbird?
It seems to me that copying everything from
appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles
will give me all my old files on the new machine -- after doing
the program Installation in the ordinary way, so it is properly
identified in the Win 11 Registry file.

- I used Mozbackup as I had done 5 years ago, but it fell short.
Thunderbird lacked its contacts, Firefox lacked its bookmarks.
- I see that the 2011 version is the latest from the author. His site
admits to known glitches, and there is no development planned.
- However, my Mozbackup problems on Win 11, SSD machine,
conceivably owed to the Disk/controller errors -- which led to a
crash, etc., and caused me to send back the machine after three days.

So I'm not SURE that Mozbackup is insufficient for Win 11, but I
don't really see how the disk problems of my new machine would have
contributed without throwing disk errors that I would have seen
when I used "eventvwr" to see why other things were going slow.

I was considering abandoning the two free programs if I could
not expect to transfer their data next time, but now I think I have
an upgrade route.

For those who do any backups by hand, Agent or other --
I spent a while mis-typing file names in the .cmd files to do backups
to outside disk, for various files; then, similarly for moving to the
new disk. (My old computer is still functional.) I finally ended up
going back to my old MSDOS skills at the C: prompt. I had to
trust to finger memory to get functional, so, FYI, here are the useful
commands.

Win-R gets a box for commands
type in cmd to get the c: prompt
dir lists the current directiory (see the available names)
CD <dirname> goes a level deeper
CD .. moves up a directory

--
Rich Ulrich

gfre...@aol.com

unread,
Jul 13, 2022, 2:29:20 AM7/13/22
to
On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 01:51:22 -0400, Rich Ulrich
<rich....@comcast.net> wrote:

>I think I've done this fine. Am I still registered?
>
>I installed Agent (latest version), taking the 30 day Free period
>since I don't find my registration from last time.

In my old version, I can just copy the Agent directory to a thumb
drive and run it anywhere. I haven't tried that in my new version tho.

Ralph Fox

unread,
Jul 13, 2022, 3:35:55 AM7/13/22
to
On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 01:51:22 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:

> I think I've done this fine. Am I still registered?
>
> I installed Agent (latest version), taking the 30 day Free period
> since I don't find my registration from last time.
>
> After copying the files, it does appear that Agent knows me,
> so I THINK it won't ask me to pay. (I'll pay, if they ask.)
>
> Q1. Am I properly registered?
>
> Nest: This is not a Forte Agent question but I hope it has a
> simple YES answer:

Yes - the Agent registration is in the [Profile] section of the
AGENT.INI file which you copied over.


> Q2. Do similar steps work for moving Firefox and Thunderbird?
> It seems to me that copying everything from
> appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles
> will give me all my old files on the new machine -- after doing
> the program Installation in the ordinary way, so it is properly
> identified in the Win 11 Registry file.

Thunderbird: <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer>

As with Agent, you might need to fix up settings containing directory paths
if these are different on the new machine.


> - I used Mozbackup as I had done 5 years ago, but it fell short.
> Thunderbird lacked its contacts, Firefox lacked its bookmarks.
> - I see that the 2011 version is the latest from the author. His site
> admits to known glitches, and there is no development planned.
> - However, my Mozbackup problems on Win 11, SSD machine,
> conceivably owed to the Disk/controller errors -- which led to a
> crash, etc., and caused me to send back the machine after three days.
>
> So I'm not SURE that Mozbackup is insufficient for Win 11, but I
> don't really see how the disk problems of my new machine would have
> contributed without throwing disk errors that I would have seen
> when I used "eventvwr" to see why other things were going slow.

Thunderbird 78 (July 2020) moved the contacts (address book) from
a .MAB file to a SQLITE database. Perhaps that is why Mozbackup
missed them?

REF: <https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/78.0/releasenotes/#changes>


> I was considering abandoning the two free programs if I could
> not expect to transfer their data next time, but now I think I have
> an upgrade route.
>
> For those who do any backups by hand, Agent or other --
> I spent a while mis-typing file names in the .cmd files to do backups
> to outside disk, for various files; then, similarly for moving to the
> new disk. (My old computer is still functional.) I finally ended up
> going back to my old MSDOS skills at the C: prompt. I had to
> trust to finger memory to get functional, so, FYI, here are the useful
> commands.
>
> Win-R gets a box for commands
> type in cmd to get the c: prompt
> dir lists the current directiory (see the available names)
> CD <dirname> goes a level deeper
> CD .. moves up a directory


--
Kind regards
Ralph

𝐴𝑢𝑡 𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑚 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑚 𝑎𝑢𝑡 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑚 — 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐚 (𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤟𐤁𐤓𐤒)

Rich Ulrich

unread,
Jul 13, 2022, 1:02:10 PM7/13/22
to
On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 19:35:49 +1200, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
wrote:

>On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 01:51:22 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
>> I think I've done this fine. Am I still registered?
>>
>> I installed Agent (latest version), taking the 30 day Free period
>> since I don't find my registration from last time.
>>
>> After copying the files, it does appear that Agent knows me,
>> so I THINK it won't ask me to pay. (I'll pay, if they ask.)
>>
>> Q1. Am I properly registered?
>>
>> Nest: This is not a Forte Agent question but I hope it has a
>> simple YES answer:
>
>Yes - the Agent registration is in the [Profile] section of the
>AGENT.INI file which you copied over.

Great! Thanks!

>
>
>> Q2. Do similar steps work for moving Firefox and Thunderbird?
>> It seems to me that copying everything from
>> appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles
>> will give me all my old files on the new machine -- after doing
>> the program Installation in the ordinary way, so it is properly
>> identified in the Win 11 Registry file.
>
>Thunderbird: <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer>

Okay! That's exactly the same thing. File Explorer (name now)
doesn't want to show me those hidden directories when I start from
scratch.

>
>As with Agent, you might need to fix up settings containing directory paths
>if these are different on the new machine.

Right. I will do an installation, then find what needs to be
replaced.
>
>
>> - I used Mozbackup as I had done 5 years ago, but it fell short.
>> Thunderbird lacked its contacts, Firefox lacked its bookmarks.
>> - I see that the 2011 version is the latest from the author. His site
>> admits to known glitches, and there is no development planned.
>> - However, my Mozbackup problems on Win 11, SSD machine,
>> conceivably owed to the Disk/controller errors -- which led to a
>> crash, etc., and caused me to send back the machine after three days.
>>
>> So I'm not SURE that Mozbackup is insufficient for Win 11, but I
>> don't really see how the disk problems of my new machine would have
>> contributed without throwing disk errors that I would have seen
>> when I used "eventvwr" to see why other things were going slow.
>
>Thunderbird 78 (July 2020) moved the contacts (address book) from
>a .MAB file to a SQLITE database. Perhaps that is why Mozbackup
>missed them?
>
>REF: <https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/78.0/releasenotes/#changes>

I found a way to export the contacts to .html, and that should
be import-able -- if I don't abandon Mozbackup immediately.
Okay, I think replacing the files is more trustworthy than Mozbackup,
and not much more difficult. My new computer is supposed to arrive
later today.

>
>> I was considering abandoning the two free programs if I could
>> not expect to transfer their data next time, but now I think I have
>> an upgrade route.
>>
>> For those who do any backups by hand, Agent or other --
>> I spent a while mis-typing file names in the .cmd files to do backups
>> to outside disk, for various files; then, similarly for moving to the
>> new disk. (My old computer is still functional.) I finally ended up
>> going back to my old MSDOS skills at the C: prompt. I had to
>> trust to finger memory to get functional, so, FYI, here are the useful
>> commands.
>>
>> Win-R gets a box for commands
>> type in cmd to get the c: prompt
>> dir lists the current directiory (see the available names)
>> CD <dirname> goes a level deeper
>> CD .. moves up a directory

Thanks again.

--
Rich Ulrich

Rich Ulrich

unread,
Jul 14, 2022, 12:32:58 PM7/14/22
to
Okay, it is NOT exactly the same thing. I tried it MY way, which
was by renaming the created file, and putting mine in its place -
and that did not work. But I'm in pretty good shape today.

Copying the old one over the old one, as the mozilla file says,
worked. I think. I futzed around with Mozbackup, too, where
(I notice) the option for saving Contacts is grayed-out. The
.html option worked, for export/import of Contacts -- they are
there, though I don't see them on a toolbar.

Thanks again, folks.
--
Rich Ulrich
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